Re: why debian on a handheld ?
On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 01:13:34PM +1100, Glenn McGrath wrote:
> Is debian suitable for handhelds ?
Isn't it? And if it isn't, is it not flexible enough to be adapted for
handheld use?
> Im sure weve all seen the threads over the years about trying to shrink
> base, while i would like to see it happen i think bureaucracy within
> debian makes it a very difficult task.
There is no compelling reason to tie a Debian-based handheld project to the
same base system used for the rest of Debian. Bureaucracy is not an
obstacle; if some parts of the project have no place within Debian proper,
they will exist separately.
> Debian policy makes it difficult to a shrink the system, steps
> debian-installer had to make such as the use of udebs were met with
> resistance all the way, and still arent considered offical packages.
It may turn out that we will need something similar to udebs, or that udebs
themselves will even serve our purposes.
> Getting a debian package for busybox also took a long time.
How is this relevant? It sounds almost like you are trying to discourage
us; I see no reason to do that when there are people willing to work on
something with the potential to be useful.
> Do you intend to try to install a normal base system and depend on the use
> of compact flash cards or something ?
That is one option, but not a necessity. I already have a working prototype
which fits in 16M of compressed flash. There will almost certainly be more
than one distribution, and some may be larger than the internal storage of a
particular handheld.
> Openzaurus do a pretty good job with their distribution, what would our
> relationship be with them ?
We will be working closely with OpenZaurus to leverage the strengths of both
projects. It is not yet clear what forms this project will take, and the
relationship of this project with others will become clear as it takes
shape.
--
- mdz
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